Monday, August 02, 2004

"Restless tonight..."

I can’t seem to get that Fingers eleven song out of my head: One Thing. I can relate to it too much tonight. “Restless tonight, ‘cause I wasted the light…if I traded it all, if I traded it all away for one thing, just for one thing…wouldn’t that be something…” I wonder what provoked his spirit into writing the soul wrenching lyrics?
My little sister and I have a very unusual relationship. She called me tonight…I’ve been crying. I’ve actually been doing a lot of that here lately. I’m tired of excuses…I don’t have any good ones. Millions of people go through the hell we went through as children. Millions of women go to school full time and take care of their children full time as well as being a full time wife. Millions of women don’t crumble under all of this immense pressure. Why should I be any different?
My sister called because she had been crying the other night. She thought I should know. I should know that the one brother…the one male role model that I had to look up too when I was young and alone, when we were young and alone, no longer cares for us. He apparently had to watch us too much when we were younger and it makes him not want to talk or see us now. He’s twelve years older than us. In a medical family he was the only one of us who chose a different profession. He chose to become a cop. He’s nothing! What kind of a cop lets bad things happen to his little sisters? What kind of a cop can then turn his back on us because we were too big of a burden for him? We were nobody’s burden! We were children! Just children. My hands tremble even now as I’m writing this down. I loved him. I still love him and he has ripped my heart in half again. All my life all I have ever wanted was family. I gave myself selflessly to them and have only been used and abused on their part. They treat me and my little sister as worthless. Our own mother…she doesn’t care. It hurts to have my daughter ask about granny and I have no answer, because I will not teach my prejudice of her to my children. Out of all seven grandchildren, my two are tossed aside. I am afraid of how this will affect them as they grow older and can realize the biased attitude toward them…simply because they are my children.
My oldest brother was the one man I looked up to. We're not all given the responsibilities that we wanted, or even needed, but we all have to deal with the ones we were given! How can someone hate to be a little girl’s hero? He used to be my hero. At twenty five, going on twenty six, I don’t guess I should still need one. I find that it hurts all the same. The fact is that he didn’t have to watch us all the time. What little I remember from my childhood I remember that we were always alone. How can he place the blame on us just for being born? I don’t want his pity! He can keep his ‘poor you’ looks to himself. I don’t want anything from him but to see my niece and nephew. The world wouldn’t have missed much if my mother kept her legs closed. I know she didn’t want me or my little sister. How could she? Maybe they pushed us off on my older brother and sister, but it couldn’t have been for more than the first couple of years of my life. How can he blame us for that? How do you stop the pain of such knowledge?